How Holocaust Rescuers Found Humanity and Courage

By MARJORIE KAUFMAN

Published: September 17, 1995

THE Holocaust created a drama of victims, perpetrators, rescuers and bystanders," Malka Drucker said. "Most of us are bystanders."

It was the exception to that, and not the rule, that became the topic of "Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust" (Holmes & Meier) by Ms. Drucker, a children's writer, and Gay Block, a portrait photographer.

In the introduction, Ms. Drucker wrote: "Rescuers do not easily yield the answer to why they had the strength to act righteously in a time of savagery. It remains a mystery, perhaps a miracle. Many helped strangers, some saved friends, lovers. Some had humane upbringings, others did not. Some were educated, others were barely literate. What they did share, however, was compassion, empathy, an intolerance of injustice and an ability to endure risks beyond what one wants to imagine."

Ms. Drucker, who grew up in Rockville Centre and Massapequa Park, invited her friend Ms. Block to explore the rescuers' histories through her camera. "We felt compelled to meet these people while it was still possible," Ms. Drucker said in an interview from her home in Santa Fe, N.M.

The writers spent more than three years traveling in eight countries to hear, record and honor the accounts of 105 Christian rescuers, chosen at random, representing 11 countries. With video cameras and interpreters' help, Ms. Block and Ms. Drucker documented testimonies including those who saved one life to those who worked in the resistance and saved thousands, always with the threat of death and torture if their missions were discovered.

On Saturday an exhibition, "Rescuers of the Holocaust: Portraits by Gay Block," will open at the Museums at Stony Brook under the auspices of Curatorial Assistance of Pasadena, Calif. The exhibition includes 56 pictures of rescuers who were interviewed for the book.

Coinciding with the publication of the book in 1992, a version of the exhibition opened at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.

In interviewing the rescuers, often for a few hours, Ms. Block said bonds formed between the interviewers and subjects so that often instead of running a long time picture taking lasted 10 minutes. Many times the rescuers did not understand why anyone would want to take their photographs, Ms. Block said.

The photographs are in color, a decision made midway through the project. "These people had told us stories of unbelievable heroism," Ms. Block said. "But they were all unassuming and modest. I did not need to add drama to their images, which is sometimes the effect of black-and-white portraits. I wanted the photographs to be contemporary, so people could relate to the rescuers."

Ms. Block, who was born in Houston, has been exhibiting portraits of Jewish communities since 1973, when she began photographing members of her temple in Houston, the oldest Reform congregation in the Southwest. "I learned quickly through photography that by looking closely I could understand differently," she said. "I didn't have to go with my prejudices."

From more than 200 hours of interviews with rescuers she created a video, "They Risked Their Lives," that accompanies the photography exhibition. Last summer her show, "Camp Pinecliffe," based on pictures taken at a summer camp in Maine, was at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan.

Ms. Drucker recalled that a visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, in 1979 spurred her interest in the rescuers. "Carob trees flanked a path called the Avenue of the Righteous." she said. "And on a small marker beside each tree was the name of a person who had rescued Jews. I assumed these people were dead and the trees were their memorial."

The Jewish Foundation for Christian Rescuers, which became a part of the Anti-Defamation League in Manhattan, was created in 1987 by Ms. Drucker's rabbi and mentor, Harold M. Schulweis of Encino, Calif.

As of January 1995, 12,682 of the "righteous" had been recognized as rescuers by the foundation.

Ms. Drucker, who has written 15 books for young readers, including 10 based on Jewish themes, was urged by Rabbi Schulweis to write a children's book about the rescuers.

"After I met my first rescuer," she said, "I saw there was something beyond the scope of a children's book, an adult experience to learn from." "We began to realize there is a great resistance in us to hearing about goodness," Ms. Drucker said, noting that 22 publishers rejected the book, "because then people begin to look at themselves, and it points a finger at us."

Each of the 49 stories wrestles with altruistic behavior and the question whether the rescuers were ordinary people who did the extraordinary. "One of the reasons we study the rescuers is that they represent the highest form of moral achievement," Ms. Drucker wrote in the introduction. "We examine them to find a way to teach altruism."

For many, doing the right thing was the normal thing.

Marion P. van Binsbergen Pritchard, who was born in 1920 in the Netherlands and whose portrait appears in the photography exhibition, rescued 150 Jews. A daughter of a liberal judge in Amsterdam, she said her father had taught her tolerance. One family that she helped hide under her basement floorboards was that of Freddie Pollak and his three children, one of whom, Erica, is now a psychologist in Amsterdam.

Ms. Pritchard, a psychoanalyst in Vermont, studies altruistic behavior. She will be honored at a benefit to raise money for educational programs associated with the exhibition, to be held at the Museums at Stony Brook on Oct. 1.

"Marion is a totally principled person," Ms. Drucker said of the woman with whom she has remained close friends, as is the case with many of the interviewees.

The book, divided geographically, lists the Netherlands with the record for the most rescuers whose names are listed at Yad Vashem. But the writers said they were not looking for patterns, but rather seeking to understand the individuals through their narratives.

Last year Bantam Doubleday and Dell published Ms. Drucker's "Jacob's Rescue," a book for children based on her interview with Alex and Mela Roslan. The Roslans hid three young Jewish brothers from the Warsaw Ghetto along with their own children in Warsaw.

Ms. Drucker will be at the Museums at Stony Brook for a signing for "Jacob's Rescue" on Oct. 1.

"My grandmother used to call my sister in Yiddish 'a cooking spoon,' " Ms. Drucker recalled. "She was in everyone's business. In a sense the rescuers are like holy busybodies who exhibit compassion. The world was and is their neighborhood. They do not avert their eyes."

The Museums at Stony Brook are coordinating several events surrounding the exhibition. Some survivors, including George Reisglid of Setauket, will discuss their experiences on Oct. 8. A family theater production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" by the Theater Workshops Fantasy Playhouse will be presented on Oct. 22, and an afternoon of poetry by Claire Nicholas White of St. James, and music by the North Shore Pro Musica will be on Nov. 12.

A forum on Oct. 15 will include a non-Jewish view of the Holocaust by Vincent Marmorale, prejudice-reduction coordinator for the Sachem public schools and director of the Holocaust curriculum for Suffolk County schools. "It's imperative that we note those that risked so much in history's darkest hour when so many others were indifferent," Mr. Marmorale said.

The Blue Heron Theater will present the premiere of a drama based on the book "Rescuers," written by Elizabeth Striker. The production, directed by Joe Banno, opens on Nov. 9 at the Hudson Guild Theater in Manhattan, commemorating the 57th anniversary of Kristallnacht. The play is to run through Dec. 3.

"The production is almost a tone poem based on five testimonies in the book," the managing director of the Blue Heron, Gary Bernstein, said. "It isolates the moment when these people said, 'I am going to do something.' Their decision grips us emotionally and intellectually."

The cast's reading of scenes will be part of the benefit gala at the museums on Oct. 1.

"These people, the rescuers, in their old age had something I coveted," Ms. Drucker said. "At least once in their life they had done the right thing. They all shared the gift of courage. I feel grateful for having done the work and in a way rescued by it."

Photos: Gay Block, left, and Malka Drucker, who worked together on "Rescuers." Marion P. van Binsbergen Pritchard with Erica Pollak as a baby.; Alex and Mela Roslan, who hid 3 Jewish brothers from the Warsaw Ghetto, and Ms. Pritchard in photo by Ms. Block.